


First Impressions, First Assumptions

by Haddi_Etana3



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Deaf Character, M/M, Muteness, Pre-Relationship, Traumatic Muteness, and his parents are spade and paint, aradia is kars sister, came out p good, i wrote it for a class paper, just an fyi, so here you go assholes, theyre never really mentioend so i didnt include them, this is like super fucking vauge bullshit btw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 16:32:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6159730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haddi_Etana3/pseuds/Haddi_Etana3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave doesn't want to get treatment, but he just can't take the way his sister and mom cries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Impressions, First Assumptions

For three weeks all Dave found were pamphlets left around by Mom and his sister, Rose. The Sburb Speech Society: a group dedicated to aiding those with speech impediments inflicted by disorders/diseases varying from seizures to deafness. In Dave’s case, it was traumatic and selective mutism.

His selective mutism was always there, doctors said it was hereditary. Dave assumed he got it from Mom from how sorry she looked sometimes. Because of that he had a relatively isolated childhood from other children, but it never bothered him. At first Mom tried to take him to the park, but Dave would cry and beg to go home. Eventually she was panicking about how he’d never develop normally. After one particularly bad anxiety attack, Bro returned home when he was finished with his second year of college to help out.

Bro always had a calming aura for Dave, so when he started taking his baby brother to the park, Dave wouldn’t complain as much. He still avoided the other children, but his brother was there, so it was better. It took a full year, but when Bro made friends with other patrons of the park, Dave was eased into interacting with others his age.

Dave had only two or three kids he’d be okay with walking up to and talking with, even though some of them were very outgoing. Bro was ecstatic, and continued to ease him into different social situations. More often than not Dave would shut out and get quiet, but the few times it worked outshined the times he clammed up.

Then, when Dave was fourteen, Bro got an infection from a cut on his arm when building a metal mainframe for work. They had to go to the hospital and get some antibiotics, then went home. Bro started getting pains in his stomach and a fever, but they all just thought he was reacting to the antibiotics and called the doctor. The doctor gave them something else and they used that, but it got even worse. Three days later of painful urinating, he pissed blood and they brought him to the hospital.

It turned out he had developed Nephritis from both of the antibiotics the doctor had prescribed for the infection. Bro was in the hospital several days. Dave had stayed in the hospital room as often as possible, refusing to leave for any reason and had to be removed forcibly multiple times so they could perform check ups. Then, one day when Dave was in there alone and after Bro had been asleep for three hours, the life detector let out one long beep.

From there Dave’s selective mutism developed into traumatic mutism. He kept to himself a lot more and only gestured to things he wanted or needed. For the first year, Rose and mom tried to get him treatment, but Dave rejected it. They gave him a break for half a year but started dropping hints about thinking of sending him to another clinic. He protested by throwing away every pamphlet he found until they confronted him head on. He saw face first how worried they were, and they cried so much, talking about how they just wanted to see him get better. Barely fifteen minutes had passed when he agreed reluctantly.

* * *

After an anxiety ridden week of waiting for the paperwork to process, he sat in the waiting room for SSS. The room was,  _ shockingly _ , silent. A man sat on the other side of Dave, eyes red and his arm jittering. Dave questioned whether the jittering was intentional or not. A lanky man was to Dave’s far left, with who Dave guessed was his son, both looking annoyed. A woman watched her children intently, them giggling as they fiddled with the legos left by staff attendants.

Five minutes and a doctor came out with a patient and exchanged brief goodbyes. The doctor looked down at her clipboard then up at the teenage boy and his father. “Karkat?” She questioned. The dad looked up, then nudged his son. Karkat looked at his dad, then to the doctor, standing the moment he saw her.

“It’s good to see you again” She said kindly, signing what she was saying in ASL as they headed to the back offices. She signed something else to him and they disappeared from sight.

Seconds passed and another doctor came out, this one repeating what the last did, “Uh, Dave Strider?”

His mom and Rose stood, Dave himself sluggishly and shyly hunched behind them. The doctor smiled kindly, “Hello, I take you’re his mother?” Mom nodded and they shook hands, “I’m Doctor Scratch.”

They greeted, then introduced himself to Rose too. Dave kept himself hunched, scared of having to introduce himself. However, the man didn’t hold out his hand to Dave, and simply said, “And you’re Dave. We’re glad to have you here. Let’s head to the back, shall we? Only one parent can be allowed in the back, though.”

Rose nodded understandingly and sat back down. Even though he had Mom he still felt like a part of his clothing got torn off. Rose nodded to him encouragingly, the smile on her face a stark difference from how hard she was crying the week before. Remembering that just reminded him how badly she was crying on the day of their brother’s death.

He followed Mom and the doctor as they headed all the way to the back. They reached Doctor Scratch’s office and Dave was instructed to sit on the couch in front of desk, Mom firmly next to him. Their session was mostly filled with Mom explaining his tendencies, them never really delving into what caused his traumatic mutism. They eased him into getting comfortable with Doctor Scratch and went over exercises that, of course, didn’t produce any results.

They left the office and all of Dave’s worry and anxiety over the visit began dissipating when he had both Mom and his sister within sight. After exchanging parting reminders and words, the conversation wrapped up and they left the building to their car. When waiting for the door to open, Dave heard yelling from behind them. Mom and Rose looked up as well and watched as Karkat was being yelled at by his dad. The girls just made disapproving noises at the loudness, but Dave watched a bit more closely. Karkat stood defiantly, looking bored by what his dad was saying. Dave snorted and got into the car.

* * *

 

The next week Dave came in, Karkat was there again with his dad, them standing out front again and his Dad saying something quietly, looking sad while saying it. Still, Karkat seemed like he was ignoring him if anything.

Like the last visit Mom was allowed in for the session, and they tried a couple of exercises again. They all were boring and stupid in Dave’s opinion, but he’d do it if Mom was there, reminding him why he was doing it.

For his next session they did something he didn’t expect. Doctor Scratch wanted him to write or type everything in place of speaking for exercises. Slowly, over the courses of their sessions, Doctor Scratch began getting him to talk to him and everyone else through writing it or typing it down.

He still usually used nonverbal cues to communicate, but slowly was starting to explain himself more through writing. It was evident Mom and Rose were feeling better about his development, and the house felt lighter than usual.

Eventually his doctor said it was time for him to take on sessions alone. The panic he felt on the first try was unbearable, and Mom had to come back in. The fourth time he almost got through the entire session, and the seventh he did it alone. From there, he started going in alone as he got more comfortable with Doctor Scratch.

* * *

 

Dave noticed that Karkat had come in alone, looking particularly rough. He didn’t make a comment, and they went to their respective rooms when called. Doctor Scratch then announced that it was time to participate in interacting with a fellow patient. Since he took in account of his anxiety, Doctor Scratch said that Mom would be present for the time and they’d be doing the meeting in Scratch’s office.

As the minutes passed, Dave’s panic rose, but Mom kept squeezing his hand, so he hoped for the best. Then, the other patient came in, Doctor Scratch right behind him, “Dave, this is Karkat Vantas.”

Dave frowned, and just stared at the other teenager.

“Say hello to each other.” Doctor Scratch encouraged.

Karkat looked up at Doctor Scratch in annoyance and then briefly at Mom. He took in a deep breath, and let out a rasp that sounded along the lines of a hello.

Dave stared at him warily. It felt like his body was tensing up. It was like every other greeting he’d attempted before in his life- he felt like he was going into shut down mode. Then, like a spark of light, Mom squeezed his hand again gently. He looked at her briefly and took a deep breath. For a moment the pen hovered over the paper, and he wrote down a shaky hi.

Doctor Scratch smiled, then sat Karkat down. He explained the lengthy parts of who each other were, “Karkat is here on the account of his deafness, and Dave because of his traumatic and selective mutism. Both of you, for the next couple of sessions, are going to be encouraged to talk to one another. I also encourage you two get to know each other outside of the clinic, as it’ll make it easier for you two to get along and communicate.”

The session continued, and they went on to doing basic greetings to one another. Once again the doctor pushed for some verbal responses from Dave, but he could barely draw out a written response from him. Though, Dave did learn sparse details about Karkat through the session: he had one brother, one half sister, and a mom and a dad. His favorite color was brown, and enjoyed 80’s music. Dave gave the same information in exchange: he had a mom and a sister, favorite color was purple, and liked rap and synthetic.

Once the session was over, Dave and Karkat didn’t bother to pay attention to each other more than they had to.

* * *

 

Their first day hanging out was awkward and uncomfortable. Both just sat in silence while their moms talked. Their second time hanging out had more communication, and that's when Dave learned Karkat hated going to his sessions and hated his dad, but he wouldn’t tell Dave why. 

One day, Dave overheard mom comforting Karkat’s mom over the phone after Karkat exploded on her and his dad. He’d run out of the house and Dave spent the night helping search for him. When they found him sitting in Burger King they took him back to the Strider-Lalonde household. Both boys sat in Dave’s living room while waiting for Karkat’s parents to get there. They didn’t talk, and Dave was too frustrated by that point to get too much anxiety.

After their third session, Mom told him the Vantas family were coming over for dinner. It was unsurprisingly silent on both of Dave and Karkat’s ends. A couple of times Dave tapped on the table to get Karkat’s attention so he could grab the salt or something, while Karkat just grunted. 

When Karkat had grunted again to get Dave’s attention, his dad noticed. His dad got Karkat’s attention and sternly told him to use his words. Karkat just stared him down. Then, after a solid minute, Karkat let out a soft grunt. It looked like his dad was about to explode in a fury of anger with an expression that scared Dave.

Dave stood as loudly as possible and wrote down messily that he needed to go to the restroom. Karkat signed he needed to go as well and both of them trekked down the hallway. Once out of sight Dave hummed angrily and, using his notepad, asked why he needed to act that way to his dad.

Karkat couldn’t even write correctly from how pissed he was so he ended up signing most of explanation. Since Dave didn’t know any sign language he could only sigh in frustration. They went to Dave’s room, sitting on his bed while waiting for Karkat to calm down.

Once he was settled, Karkat wrote down, still pretty messy but more coherent, everything his father did. His dad and mom never learned sign language, and instead kept trying to teach him how to speak. They kept buying him hearing aids, but Karkat always made sure they ended up broken or lost. Whenever he wrote something down they didn’t pay attention, and always used him as their own “pity” stool with their friends. He said he was glad he was stuck with a hearing disability over every other disability, because he didn't have to hear their friends say they felt bad for his parents. 

Karkat then detailed about how his brother and sister put in the effort to learn sign language, but he prefered his sister on the grounds that his brother pulled the pity party train too. She treated him like he didn’t need to get fix, and never once coddled him for the handicap, but still recognized his deafness was a part of him.

With how much Karkat rejected his parents, his mom was becoming more distant with him than ever and his dad more physical with pushing. His brother wasn’t too bad, but often got short tempered with how Karkat reacted to his parents’ actions. Then his sister was mostly supportive, often defending him from everyone else.

Dave then understood why Karkat didn’t care about his dad yelling, and why he fought with his parents so often. Originally Dave thought that he was just a kid being a brat, but his parents weren’t the best. Of course they weren’t the worst, but Karkat wrote down that he’d prefer living somewhere else if he could. After that, Dave didn’t see Karkat as such a bad guy.

* * *

 

At their next session, Doctor Scratch wanted to see how much they’d improved over the four week course of being around each other. He asked them to reintroduce themselves.

Karkat said, “Hi” in a voice that reminded Dave of a croaking frog, “I-I am” He exaggerated his mouth movements, “Kar-kat.”

Doctor Scratch nodded, and looked at Dave. With less hesitation than every other greeting he’s ever made, he scribbled down in black pen in his notepad:  _ Hey, I’m Dave. _


End file.
